Very few of us Goans are perhaps aware of the true extent of the tragedy that has befallen our migrant workers trying to reach home. I've just read a report from the wire.in that 3 out of 4 deaths in the Shramik trains were less due to underlying conditions, as this unconscionable government claims, than to hunger, extreme dehydration and killing heat. In one case, one family was trapped in a delayed and diverted train without food and water for all of four days; one of the children died as a result. At last count, some 80 odd people have died in the trains, which were ostensibly especially ordered for the repatriation of migrants. It is unfortunate that civil India has not been able to do anything at all, even three months later, about the distress of these our friends who help build our houses and the infrastructure of our towns and cities. Most of them, in Goa at least, are mere kids, taking up their first jobs far from home. One wishes political parties, labour unions, religious organisations and all other interest groups throughout the country had banded together and offered the countervailing opposition that would have, and still can, alleviate the hardships being imposed on these humble innocents. One looks to the revolutionary reaction in the US to the murder of George Floyd by police and wishes that this could be one Western behaviour we should not be ashamed to copy.